You're not a drop in the ocean, you're the ocean in a drop.

(Rumi)

I confess that I've been talking to myself all my life. And also with dogs, cats, birds, trees, and, most especially, with secret friends of the soul. I believe, without knowing why, that at the end of the day, we are all the same being. The others, with whom, of course, I also speak, and answer me usually in words, while the first mentioned, either remains silent, or look at me compassionately and affectionately, or stirs my soul, sometimes with sublime consequences that feel like beautiful dreams or embraces of deep love.

I really don't know when this conversation started, from this so-called point of view of mine. But now, speaking in solitary, writing these notes to be read probably only by myself, I am reminded of my childhood and of the invisible friends who accompanied me, and with whom I talked, asked questions, and complained. My conversations with them took me to inner worlds, which I did not share with the people around me. And I would get lost there until voices called me from outside. And sometimes I felt that the others were a three-dimensional projection of myself, that they were the same invisible voices but projected outside.

And I don't know if it was a lack of sanity or if it was because of the impact of the landing on this world. In my infancy and childhood, there were no traumatic relationships, my family was very loving, and my mother was a special being. But I always had a constant conversation with myself, with my secret friends, and with cats, dogs, and trees.

And I do feel that everyone is always talking to himself or herself.

I don't know if all of you, or at least some of you, feel the same way. What I mean is that each of us is a character in each other's conversations, holding a monologue in a constant crowd from multiple points of view at once. This is in addition to chatting with secret friends, trees, things, and pets. Is it possible that this is the case, that everyone feels it, and that I don't know it because very few say it for some reason? Perhaps because they don't think this is important or because they consider it a private madness of their own.

But at this point in my journey through life, on my eighth decade, I decided to use what little I have left of memory to share something about what I think about this long conversation with myself.

We measure the duration of life in segments of time, but I think that life really is measured in the moments of love exchanged. Family, partner, friends, lovers, colleagues, and pets. Each segment begins when the relationship begins and ends when the relationship ends. Each stage brings with it suffering and joy, the discovery of others, and, most of all, of oneself.

And derived from this love, there is an immense and overwhelming beauty, which we often do not see except in those interruptions, when we need them and remember deeply the moments exchanged with our loved ones. Then a sweet and subtle sad joy surrounds us, and we feel that beautiful love, like a waltz on a night of romance, surrounding everything.

In the midst of this being that I am, or pretend to be, in this living day by day, I am constantly assailed by diverse images of moments shared and lived with so many people I loved and met. Life is a continuum of music, a hidden concert that is born from within and sculpted in passing clouds. For a moment, they hold forms and seem imperishable, but they are only ephemeral breaths, that then seem to vanish into nothingness. But there is always a love, engraved in the heart, of those shared moments. And that's where all conversations are born.

We are all characters in this play. We slide like raindrops in a glass window, alternately joining and disbanding, until finally runoff returns all of us to the sea.

There is a silence of love which always surrounds us. But we don't realize it, except sometimes, because we are so distracted with so much flow around us. The endless external phantasmagoria and all the internal currents that arise from our emotions, thoughts, and instincts, distract us from this loving silence.

Passing through this life, I have met so many people. First, the family, in those tiny realms where one stumbles in intimacy and in first voices with others. Then the neighbors, and on a larger scale, the school, friends, colleagues, the tribe, society, and the planet.

And this bubble of being oneself, which is suddenly drawn into this surrounding three-dimensionality in this passing, is subject to multiple influences. Some are inherent, which come with the genetic and karmic envelope, as a potential that unfolds, coming from unconscious character and personality tendencies, fears, and capacities. And others, based on definitions superimposed by our parents, and the environment of one’s culture and society. The latter, at the beginning of the day, tries to answer all the questions one has about the wonder of being alive, and our curiosity about what to do. The cultural and societal context defines our roles, possibilities, friends, enemies, and what is good and bad.

And so, little by little, one realizes that one "is," alive, conscious, that we enjoy and suffer, that one is. But it is not only family, tribe, and country that influence and condition our being, but also the multitudes of unknown people who, in time and space, have been accumulating thought, and making the history of the human species. They all have an impact, in a direct or indirect way, on our conversation with ourselves.

And not to mention the multitude of insects, fish, birds, cows, microbes, dogs, cats, atoms, energies, and stars that move, alive or seemingly inert, through the senses and mind. And that one observes, defines, ignores, or escapes from them, or makes them one's friends, or eats them. All, all are an integral part of the scenography of this presentation on stage that one is.

It's astoundingly amazing, this thing of living. This flood of minds, this constant flood of situations, proprioception, desires, thoughts, news, frustrations, opinions, relationships, acceptances, and rejections. The beliefs and impertinences that spill everywhere and challenge you to follow or fight them and seek you out and take you out of any attempt at subjectivity or isolation, whenever you try to escape from "the other voices" that share the stage with you, whether inside or outside.

And to top it all, everything is constantly changing. We move, we age, we change our minds, and we die. Life has moments of enchantment, of bliss, and also moments of agony, of doubt, and of confusion. There is peace, and there is war.

But no matter who you talk to, you're always talking to yourself. One is like the echo of a voice, bouncing off shapes and thoughts, taking on an infinite number of possibilities of expression to tell and sing a love song.

Maybe we talk alone, because, actually, there's no one else. Maybe there is only a single being who speaks to itself in a multitude, like an infinite ventriloquist who speaks of love, seeking it and finding it in others, who are nothing but One.

These notes are written for myself, telling me about my talking to myself. They don't intend to start a dialogue out of a monologue. They are part of those things of living, that lead us to smile or to sigh.